The Fifth Element
by AlwaysCastle
Summary: Kate takes a random day off from work...but why? Story is better then the summary! Rated for language. ONESHOT


_The Fifth Element_

"Shit shit shit!" Strands of flaming orange fall from shaking fingers. Kate Beckett stares at her hair in the bathroom mirror in shock, disbelief...and just..."Damnit!" She yells again, now her voice shaking with un shed tears.

Kate grabs at another strand of hair, pulling it taunt searching for any normalcy in the fibers. Of course she finds none. Her once beautiful chestnut hair is orange...like really orange. Kate lets go of her hair, dropping her arms to her sides as she blows her hair out of her face frustrated. She leans forward, eye to eye with the mirror and turns her head this way and that. Yep completely orange. No way is she leaving the house. She'll have to take a sick day...not even a hat can hide this.

"Shit." She says again, and then sighs, throwing her towel now ruined with hair dye into the hamper in the corner of the bathroom.

She had doubts when she bought the hair color. On a whim even. She was shopping and was reaching for her cherry scented shampoo and saw this lighter color, and thought "Why not."

"Well I'll tell you why not!" she yells at herself in the mirror taking a fistful of her orange hair. "It's fucking orange!" She growls and leaves the bathroom. Taking the box with her and thrusting it into the kitchen trash with all her rage and slams the lid down. No. Not going anywhere today. Castle and the boys would have a field day if they saw her like this. She picks up her phone from the counter and calls Esposito.

"Yo Beckett what's up?" He answers right away.

"Hey, I wont be in tomorrow can you cover for me?"

"What's wrong? anything I can do?"

"No, I'm sick..." She sifts through her hair again, " just need to stay home, rest..." Her big green eyes go glassy with tears.

"Sure thing, feel better okay?"

"Thanks." She hangs up walking into the living room and flopping down on her sofa. She looks up with glaring eyes at the orange hair that hangs in her face.

She lets a tear slip from her eyes, and wipes it away. After a few minutes of staring the flames down, she turns her head to peer out the window. It's dark now and she checks her fathers watch. It's late. She'll just go to bed and see about fixing it tomorrow. All the stores are closed anyways. Kate gets up and goes into her room. Removing her father's watch and her mother's ring, which she places softly into her jewelery box. With a sigh, she climbs into bed, tucking her hair away from her face and settling on her pillow. She tries to forget the stupid mistake. But she can smell the dye, it's giving her a headache. She closes her eyes, still livid with herself and falls asleep.

The next morning she is woken up by her cell phone ringing. She picks it up, sees it's Castle and sighs. She lets it go to voice mail and checks the time. It's past eight. She would normally be at the precinct by now. Castle probably showed up with her coffee and saw she wasn't there. By now he's probably asked Ryan and Esposito where she is...

Mm Coffee.

Kate gets up out of bed and goes into the kitchen to turn the coffee pot on. Dragging her feet across the floor and rubbing her eyes. She yawns, flicking the pot on and actually feeling slightly relieved about staying home. She could use a good day off. Walking into the bathroom Kate yawns again, eyes scrunched up. When they open she sees herself in the mirror. All relief drains away, and tears spring to her eyes...she almost forgot.

"Shit." She swears, bringing her fingers through her hair.

She hears her phone ringing in her room, but chooses to ignore it. Kate's really not in the mood to talk to anybody. She feels so foolish...Again her phone rings, followed by the coffee maker beeping, indicating it's done. She huffs out a puff of exasperate air from her lips and goes to pour herself some coffee. She holds the hot mug in both hands and breaths in it's delicious scent.

"Mmm." She soothes. Taking it with her into her room to change. She glances at her phone and sees that Castle has called a few times. As she's pulling on a pair of jeans, it hits her. Her green eyes grow wide as she comes to a horrific realization.

There's a knock at the door.

"No! no no no no no!" She whispers infuriated. Of course he'd come over to check on her! What is she going to do? Kate pulls her pants all the way up zipping them and rushes around, looking for something to cover her sprints out of her room at another knock at the door and snatches up a blanket from the couch. She throws it on over her head like a yente.

"Kate? Are you okay?" Castle calls through the door.

"Just a minute!" She yells. She runs into the bathroom checking to make sure her hair is not visible, and then brings a box of tissues into the living room. Crumpling some up to make it look like she has a cold.

she coughs, loud enough for Castle to hear through the door, and then braces herself before pulling the door open.

"Beckett." Castle says, with a worried look in is brilliant blue eyes.

"Hey Castle." Kate replies in her best imitation of a sick person, she coughs into her hand witch is fisted around her blanket. She's leaning on the door.

"Esposito and Ryan say your sick." He offers her a coffee she didn't know he was holding. Instead of taking it she eyes it longingly and steps aside for him to come in.

"Uh yea...it kind of just jumped me last night." She lies, going over to her sofa and sitting down.

"That's awful, I hate when that happens. I remember when Alexis was little and I would get sick, she'd make me breakfast in bed. The cutest thing, was she'd." He sits down next to her on the other side of the sofa, a gleam in his eyes and a smile to boot, "She'd make pancakes with a smiley face made out of fruit and whipped cream."

"That is cute." She agrees. She watches as he gets this far away look on his face.

"Of course, now she only makes me smiley face pancakes when she wants something." He looks down at the coffees in his hand in disappointment.

Kate doesn't say anything. Just watches him.

"Anyway, is there anything you need? I can go out and get you some medicine or soup. yea soup! everyone loves soup when their sick." That boyish grin of his crosses his features and she tries to hold back a smile.

"Thanks Castle but I'm all set. Just going to rest for a while..." She looks down. Feeling so guilty for lying, but thinking the alternative would be a huge mistake.

"Alright, if your sure." Castle hands her the coffee. And goes to get up.

Completely forgetting herself for a moment, Kate leans forward with a smile and takes the coffee. The blanket slips just a fraction, and a wisp of a orange slips out. She doesn't notice until she sees Castle's eyebrows raise in that look of curiosity she has learned to love and dread at the same time. Her eyes follow is upwards until she sees the damned hair dangling close to her right eyebrow.

She stands up right away, "See ya later Castle." She says walking away from him.

"Um, what's that?" He asks with a huge grin.

"It's nothing." She says her back to him.

"I beg to differ." He goes over to step in front of her.

"That's all you'll be doing, now go I'm sick." She turns away again.

He steps in front of her again, cutting her off, "Common Beckett. let me see!"

"No!" she runs into the living room, and then is surprised to see he's chased her.

"Kate common what do you have under that blanket?" He takes a hold of it.

She pulls away from him, "Nothing!"

Castle stops mouth open. "Your naked?"

"No! Geez Castle will you give it a rest?"

"Fine!"

Kate raises an eyebrow as Castle turns to leave, she sighs in relief, but soon regrets letting her guard down because he whips back around and sweeps the blanket up from around her and then gasps. Kate stands there biting her bottom lip. her long Brilliantly orange hair falls around her shoulders framming her face like some sort of exotic mermaid. Castle stands there fidgeting like he can't seem to keep his excitement in.

"Go ahead." She says.

"Shut the front door!" Castle points at her head, "You look like _The Fifth Element!_" He exclaims laughing.

She cocks her head to one side a strand of hair falling in her face. "The what?"

"Seriously? You've never seen _The Fifth Element_."

"I just said I didn't." She crosses to the coffee table and picks up the coffee he brought her taking a long sip.

Castle picks his mouth up from the floor, "It's a great movie. About this women who's the key to saving the world. She's like this legendary cosmic weapon. Scantly glad with short orange hair." He walks over to her, playing with some of her long orange hair, "But I must say it looks cuter on you." His hand brushes her cheek before he drops it.

She blushes, and then snaps out of it. " Didn't mean to do it. I was going to go for something a little lighter. And then this happened..." She turns away picking up the blanket.

"Want me to go out and get you a new color?"

"Do you even know what to get?"

"Trust me. I've been on this sort of run before. Mother," He rolls his eyes at the thought of his diva of a mother.

"Okay..." She relents, but still a bit skeptical.

"You can trust me Kate." He says walking to the door. He pokes his head in before leaving. "I'll get the color you had before, I think it's sexy." With that he shuts the door. Kate smiles wickedly to herself and sits on the sofa with a book to wait for him.

She waits.

And waits.

Almost an hour later Castle comes back letting himself in. "Jesus Castle what were you doing?"

Castle hands her the box of hair dye. The same exact color her hair used to be. "Got you a present." He says walking over to her DVD player.

Kate wastes no time going into the bathroom to apply the new color. "What is it?" She yells from the bathroom.

"You'll see!" He yells back. He pops the movie in and then goes in search of popcorn.

Kate comes out a few minutes later, Hair saturated with dye and pinned up on the top of her head, towel draped over her shoulders. "What did you get?"

"A movie." Castle says handing her a bowl of popcorn and steering her to the sofa. She sits eyeballing him. "Looks like it's working already." He says cheerfully. He turns back the the tv and presses play.

"You going to tell me what movie?" She eats a piece of popcorn and stares at him.

"The Fifth Element."

**So I did this...like today. I mean it's not ALL orange...my roots are orange and then it sort of blends to a reddish color...BUT! My mom did accidentally dye her whole head orange and that's what I told her she looked like. Good movie btw. Anyways. When I saw what I did to my hair I thought of this. Please review!**


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